Conference by Cécile Michel on January 21st, 2025

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Tuesday January 21st, 2025 at 5:30 pm (French Time) at IHES

Cécile MICHEL Research Director at CNRS and Professor at Hamburg University, gave a conference (in French) in hybrid format, entitled:

“The origins of writing:
what can we learn from cuneiform writing?”

Cuneiform writing – in the shape of wedges – was the first form
of writing invented in the history of mankind around 3400 BC by the
Sumerians in Mesopotamia. It was used for almost 3500 years to transcribe
a dozen languages using different systems, proving to be extremely flexible.
Nearly a million cuneiform texts have been discovered since the mid-19th
century, thanks to the excellent preservation capacity of clay tablets.

Cécile Michel, an assyriologist at the CNRS, has built up a vast knowledge of this script.

This presentation was followed by a musical moment with Alexandra Kortchemski who performed works by Bach and Chopin.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)